From the mouth of the enemy (AP);

Analysis: Clinton calm in hostage crisis

When the hostages had been released and their alleged captor arrested, a regal-looking Hillary Rodham Clinton strolled out of her Washington home, the picture of calm in the face of crisis.

Easy to be poised and calm, when you were hundreds of miles away from the incident.  I mean, c’mon, it’s not like she was office where it nutbar was threatening the lives of people Hillary has probably only met in pasing, if at all.

The image, broadcast just as the network news began, conveyed the message a thousand town hall meetings and campaign commercials strive for — namely, that the Democratic presidential contender can face disorder in a most orderly manner.

“I am very grateful that this difficult day has ended so well,” she declared as she stood alone at the microphone….

It was a vintage example of a candidate taking a negative and turning it into a positive. And coming just six weeks before the presidential voting begins, the timing could hardly have been more beneficial to someone hoping to stave off a loss in the Iowa caucuses and secure a win in the New Hampshire primary.

Okay, that last line is about the only thing is this whole puff piece that could even remotely be considered “objective”…

Aides said Clinton was home Friday afternoon, getting ready to deliver a partisan speech in Virginia to the Democratic National Committee, when she was told three workers in her Rochester, N.H., headquarters had been taken hostage by a man claiming to have a bomb….

The aides said Clinton immediately canceled her trip and began working the phones. She later told reporters she had New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch, a fellow Democrat, on the phone in eight minutes.

Over the ensuing five hours, as a state trooper negotiated with the suspect and hostages were released one-by-one, Clinton continued to call up and down the law enforcement food chain, from local to county to state to federal officials.

“I knew I was bugging a lot of these people, it felt like on a minute-by-minute basis, trying to make sure that I knew everything that was going on so I was in a position to tell the families, to tell my campaign and to be available to do anything that they asked of me,” the New York senator said.

THAT is how she is “Calm in the face of a crisis”?  By pertering the first responders, who were just a tad busy trying to save lives?  But then she quickly recovers:

“They were the professionals, they were in charge of this situation, whatever they asked me or my campaign to do is what we would do,” Clinton said.

But the reporter still has to give the impression that Hillary was in control:

Along with taking charge while giving the professionals free rein, Clinton offered up a third dimension to her crisis character: humanity. She said she felt “grave concern” when she first heard the news of the hostage-taking.

“It affected me not only because they were my staff members and volunteers, but as a mother, it was just a horrible sense of bewilderment, confusion, outrage, frustration, anger, everything at the same time,” Clinton said.

Ah yes, play the mommy card. 

It was a thawing moment for a stoic figure who once snapped that she opted for professional life instead of staying home to bake cookies…

You can just imagine the reporter casting a longing gaze at a freeze frame of Hillary from the news conference as he writes the piece.

And them he implies that Hillary has “schooled” us:

Class dismissed.

It’s too bad that the “class” wasn’t on journalistic ethics and objectivity.

A quick search of “Glen Johnson AP” beings up a number of his pieces for that news service.  From a glance at the first page of results, I see a number of negative pieces on Mitt Romney, and one positive on Rep. Barney Frank (D- GLBT).

Shelled out my $20 (the signifigant other thought it looked interesting as well) last night for The Mist.

I will admit up front that I had read the Novella, and was more curious as to how the story translated to the big screen.  I had read reviews that it was well done, and even the orioginal author, Stephen King, had spoken very highly of it (rare for an author to approve of an adaptation).

Overall, the movie follows the book fairly well.  I was a tad disappointed that the first portion of the novella, which really set the mood, was truncated to about 5 minutes.

The central part of the story (which is really about how thin (and fragile) the veneer of civilization really is) is well done, and pretty creepy.

The special effects beasties are OK by todays CGI standards, but not revolutionary.

I was, I admit, shocked by the ending.  It is far different from the Novella, and casts an entirely different complection on the morality tale.  Sorry, no spoiler here. 

All in all, I recommend it as worth seeing, though I think I would wait until is hits DVD or Satellite/Cable. 

COMING SOON:  Beowulf 3D!

Though typically being something of an early adopter, I have stayed away from HD video disks to date, due to the format war that is going on right now, between the two “standards”: HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.

For those of us old enough to remember the original format war of VHS vs. Betamax, this is deja-vu all over again.  Like that conflict, one format has slightly better technical specifications, but the other is more industry friendly, and less expensive.  In the first format war, VHS eventually won out, even though Betamax was a superior format, with better run times on smaller tape catridges, with superior resolution.

In essence, the technical differences in HD formats (like most things) boils down to size… or at least capacity:  HD-DVD (dual layer) stores about 8 hours of HD video; Blu-Ray stores about 9.  Now, there are various tweaks being looked at, like triple or quad layer, but these would end up being Data functions, not Media for entertainment purposes.  Unless you wanted to put the entire Lord of the Rings movie trilogy (extended versions) on one Disk…

And, to date, HD-DVD players are less expensive, even though there are more manufacturers supporting Blu-Ray at this time.

But what is really going to tip the scales for HD-DVD is Porn (courtesy of Yahoo/Reuters):

James McQuivey, a principal analyst at technology research firm Forrester, said in the VHS-versus-Betamax war, porn provided a significant boost for the winning format.

He also noted the adult entertainment industry has often paved the way with new uses of technology — such as streaming video on the Internet — and said porn could help tip the scales in the current DVD format battle.

“If the porn industry wanted to break the logjam of HD-DVD and Blu-ray, it could,” McQuivey said. “If they said ‘We are going to go with HD-DVD’ you would see a few million homes immediately go out and buy HD-DVD players. They have that power.”

It is a potential weapon that one side, at least, has ignored. Instead, Blu-ray backer Sony Corp.(6758.T) blocked manufacturers from producing porn DVDs in that format — a move that some say has pushed adult film studios into the camp of HD-DVD camp led by Toshiba Corp. (6502.T)

So, for those of you still on the fence, start looking for HD-DVD players.  Blue-Ray will end up being an oddity in entertainment, only found on the Playstation 3. 

Writing in the News Tribune , editor David Seago recently endorsed an editorial from Joseph Rago of the Wall Street Journal , concerning Blogs vs. Newspapers (of course, Mr. Seago didn’t Link to the original, even in the online version of his piece):

Blogs aren’t the cure for what ails newspapers or society these days. Done properly, they’re an important way for newspapers to adapt to the digital age. And many, if not most, independent blogs are stimulating and useful. But remember: On a good newspaper, nobody is a loose cannon – not even columnists and sportswriters and certainly not editorial writers.

If a newspaper pays your salary, somebody higher up on the food chain makes sure you stay within the bounds of propriety, fairness and accuracy – even in the realm of opinion. You can’t make up stuff and get away with it.

I wonder if Mr. Seago has forgotten the NY Times problems from Jayson Blair through the current intentional misreporting of infanticide of a healthy (post-natal) baby as an abortion; or the AP’s issues with fauxtography and the probably-doesn’t-exist Iraqi Police Source used in over 40 articles.

While it was the Blogs who exposed Rathergate, the scandals at Air America, and follow up on leads that don’t fit the MSM agenda.

As Mr. Rago points out (but Mr. Seago neglects to quote):

Certainly the MSM, such as it is, collapsed itself. It was once utterly dominant yet made itself vulnerable by playing on its reputed accuracy and disinterest to pursue adversarial agendas.

Far be it from me to dispute such august personages as these Professional Journalists.

I would note that there are two (at least) distinct forms of Blogger:  News Producers, and Commenter’s.

The News Producers are the minority, but are what the MSM and Newspapers specifically should be concerned about.  These folks - ranging from Mark Tapscott, to  Brian Mulroney , to Michelle Malkin , and many others, The folks are doing the work that the MSM won’t, and in many cases not just scooping the “real Journalists”, but driving issues and stories INTO the MSM.

The Commenter’s (including yours truly) also serve a purpose in helping to sort through the glut of information on the web, and providing for discussion and insight of various readers on those issues. It is a dynamic, flowing system, that encourages dissemination of information and views.

I can certainly understand why Blogs are the subject of derision by the self appointed Guardians of Truth in the MSM.  And I do NOT think that Blogs will really replace the Newspaper.  But Newspapers will get to be more like Blogs.  And the News Producer Blogs will become defacto Electronic Newspapers, as the line blurs.